England's "wonderful winter"

They face a busy year with two home Tests against New Zealand followed by the one-day Champions Trophy tournament and a five-Test series against Australia, before travelling down under in the winter.

England, ranked the second best Test side in the world,
faced suggestions they were complacent
for their matches against New Zealand, although Flower insisted they had not taken their opponents lightly.

"We place importance on all international series and it would be disrespectful to do anything other than that - there was no complacency in our camp," he told BBC Radio 5 live.

"We understood it would be a tough challenge to come here and win. Just because you are ranked above another team it doesn't give you the right to win any series.

"It was a good escape in the end. But we got ourselves into trouble, we didn't play particularly great cricket and did well to get a draw.

"Ian Bell and Matt Prior were excellent; they fought hard and that's a quality of the team, but we have to be better to get into winning positions, not scratching our way to a draw.

"We didn't move the ball sideways and if you don't move the ball against international batsmen you are not going to create chances. That was worrying for me. They swung the ball and we didn't do that too much."

With New Zealand on top in Auckland, England pushed nine fielders near to the boundary, but Flower defended the negative move.

"I've seen it on a number of occasions in Test cricket by various sides and it was a perfectly legitimate tactic," said Flower.

"We had no chance of winning the game and had to slow them down. They were fighting for every minute and every run.

"You can deploy your field to take wickets but in this instance the most important thing was to restrict the opponent."

Comments

As an Australian cricket fan I was greatly encouraged by England's poor performance in New Zealand. Australia will play better in England than NZ played in NZ, so Andy Flower is right - England need to improve. And they will need their best bowlers available - they will struggle to fill a gap left by the absence of Swann or Anderson.

mrnoneYou really dont rate Woakes do you!I personally dont think either Bresnan or Woakes are good enough international bowlers in a 4 man attack. Bres hasnt performed well in test cricket for a while now. And neither are good enough to bat at 7, so were not going to go with 5 bowlers- and when Swann is fit, we shouldnt need to. Seamers must be Jimmy, Finn, and Broad/Maybe Tremlett if fit

I'm not as convinced that NZ had done enough in the first test, England were 421-6 and could easily have set 200-300 to chase.

@69 Bresnan is four years older.

I don't think Woakes has quite got enough to be an international bowler, we'll keep him at Warwicks winning championships instead. To describe him as a 'tail-ender' is silly though, maybe you've got carried away in an argument there.

@65, not many people on here will take you seriously if you really think Woakes is a better batsman than Morgan! Morgan has a modest first class record but he doesn't have the high ratio of not outs per innings that Woakes has. That's because on the rare occasions he plays first class cricket he usually bats at five. Consequently he doesn't bat with the tail as often as Woakes does.

@65, but don't take my word about Warwickshire's usual batting order in four day cricket. This year's Wisden will be out soon. In it you'll find full scorecards from every county championship match played last season. I challenge you to find one game Warwickshire played in which Woakes batted ahead of Clarke! When you follow county cricket as closely as I do you know these things!

@65, you're absolutely right to say that Woakes has a lot of not outs because he usually bats with the tail. That's because he's a tailender! He bats at number eight in four day cricket, although I know from your previous comments that you think he bats at seven and Rikki Clarke at eight, but you're wrong!

@65, you're the one that ought to do his research better! Bresnan played in the fourth and fifth Ashes Tests in 2010/2011. He took 2-25 and 4-50 and scored 4 in Melbourne and in Sydney he took 3-89 and 2-51 and scored 35 as he helped England to win both Tests by an innings!

@65, if Woakes is a far superior cricketer than Bresnan how come Bresnan has played so much more international cricket than Woakes? How come Geoff Miller said Woakes was in the Test squad for NZ as a like for like replacement for Bresnan? In other words Bresnan would have been picked ahead of Woakes had he been fit!

@59 Woakes is a FAR superior cricketer than Bresnan; did not see many Ashes headlines concerning Bresnan whenwe won inAUS!!As for Woakes being primarily a bowler - stats dont lie - he has been not out usually because he was batting with the tail, and six first class hundreds makes him a better batsman than Morgan! I suggest you do your research a bit better

As I predicted, once more Eng's bowlers take the blame for Eng's batsmen's failure. Flower complains that Eng's troubles in NZ were based on Eng bowlers being unable to swing the ball. The batsmen, all out for 167 in the 1st test and 204 in the 3rd, but it's the bowlers' fault! The batsmen fail regularly but are untouchable. Amazing, but then Messers Flower & Gooch were, after all, both batsmen!

Im glad england came out of the new zealand series with some credit.it showed a lot of guts to draw the last test.but they must improve.the batting has to find a way of getting big runs in the first innings as often as possible.the new zealand series at home.maybe more exciting than the ashes.the aussies are crap at the mo.but thats not to say england wont have there scary moments too.

JimmyK. You have seen signs recently that Australia are capable of wiping the floor with anybody? They even got whitewashed by India who also are poor and haven't beaten anybody for a long time.England made Kohli and Ashwin look like bungling idiots not 5 months ago but they are world beaters again?Australia are gonna be nr1 again inside 2 years accordiing to mr Powerpoint. What a clown :))

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